Everyone here talks about how good rackshack is, but I have experienced 100% otherwise. Their support is irresponsible and slow. I have no idea why they always tell me something is fixed when it’s not. And trust me, I’m not just being stupid, I make sure something doesn’t work with multiple computers and locations before I bother them. Just now I’ve been waiting over 2 hours for a server reboot. It seems like rackshack does TOO MUCH overselling, their phone support told me their datacenter is extremely busy and they’ll get to rebooting my server when they can… Geez… I’m glad a customer’s uptime is that important to them. Maybe it’s because I only have 1 server with them so I’m not too important of a customer… being the BIGGEST dedicated server company and all… I don’t feel rackshack cares about me at all, they’re even worse than fastservers.

You're not alone and there are many other threads that say that same and it seems to be more and more often. The solution is really quite clear:

If you're not happy, it's time to switch. There are several other good providers out there who can give you what you need and keep you happy. :)

I cant find any reboot tickets in from the time-frame you're stating that took 2 hours, there was a ticket submitted with notes stating cannot access server that was sent to the support queue rather than the dc queue, where reboots are treated as priority. From your time-frame the longest one I could find was a reboot ticket that took 20 minutes to reply to, and the server took approx. 30-40 mins to come all the way up so we could close the ticket.

I am going to comment on behalf of one of my clients that moved to them to get a server.

He came to me one day saying they took his server offline and he couldn't get them to respond. Since he was in a foreign country, RS support immediately sucked for him. I optioned to call Rackshack on his behalf, and he thanked me.

So, I called Rackshack, sat on hold for an hour while listening to some heavily country music, only to be answered by someone who had a nice little attitude. When I explained the situation, they said: Tell your friend to go into RS and file a trouble ticket. The tech would NOT answer my questions, even though I had the RS id number, root password, and all needed information. I gave up arguing with the tech and passed the instructions onto my friend. He did so, only to have to wait two days for any response. During which his server was offline.

RS finally puts him back online with a swiped server. Yeah, full format. Luckily, they put the old hard drive in. However, they did not bother to mount it or anything. They contacted my friend and said, "Your old hdd is in, just mount it and move your data."

My friend had no clue how to do this, no clue where to start. So, I helpped him and moved everything back over. The next day, the server is down again. Once again, I call rackshack. They, yet again, refused to answer my questions and ushered me off to the TT system.

They have since canceled my friends server on basis that he "compromised the systems integrity twice." He hadn't even setup the server the second time.

The tech was also very rude to me and didn't care about the client.

Well, there's my input on all of this!

Also note that the boxes are NOT managed.

"why they always tell me something is fixed when it’s not"

They shouldnt be fixing things for you unless its hardware.

Was the problem hardware or software related ? Having no clue about managing the server makes me think that your friend should have opted for a managed server instead.

"He hadn't even setup the server the second time"

Probably why it was compromised a second time. Leaving a box online which has not been attended to will just leave the door open for a hacker.

Rackshack had set the server up, it was a clean server waiting for the owner to enter. What ended up happening was someone planted a trojan in one of his files that got onto the new drive. He found out about it after RS took the server down. They refused to help him remove it or even let him remove it. Straight up server kill without warning.

Originally posted by Al Nany
Everyone here talks about how good rackshack is,
There are different measures of "good", for a lot of people a high spec server with lots of bandwidth for cheap money is good.

For other people high levels of support are good.

Yes but that is their policy. If a drive contains compromised data it will be removed and replaced with a fresh one.

At the end of the day your friend had his server hacked... RS restored the server... RS are not to blame...

When you get an unmanaged server from Rackshack, you would need to do all those stuffs like patching, updating, configuring and locking down the server. All of which would have been done on the first day.

I guess RS took the server down to prevent compromising the entire network. Your friend could have order the OS restore and get it lockdown after the restore.

That isn't the issue. The issue is that when the trojan was found in the old drives files, my friend should have been able to rid of it. Instead of being allowed to remove it when it was found AFTER the drives were replaced, RS just terminated his account.

Oh well. My policy for that kind of stuff is to notify the client first and offer to help remove the virus, if it is a one-time thing, rather than killing their account immediately.

Anyway, I'll stop ranting.

Edit:

When you get an unmanaged server from Rackshack, you would need to do all those stuffs like patching, updating, configuring and locking down the server. All of which would have been done on the first day.

I guess RS took the server down to prevent compromising the entire network. Your friend could have order the OS restore and get it lockdown after the restore.

I understand the taking down of it the first time, I understand the switching of the drives with a new drive. That all was to be expected. My issue with this is how the tech responded to me and treated me, and then how they didn't even bother allowing my friend to remove the trojan. When he noticed the trojan, it was too late.

As for the OS restore, as I said in like my second post: he didn't know the trojan was in his personal files on the old hard drive. Rackshack placed the old drive into the server and allowed him to mount it to gather his data. When the drive was mounted, the trojan was basically given access to the new drive.

Anyway, the past is the past. I just needed to put in my two cents.

Originally posted by Patrick-EV1
I cant find any reboot tickets in from the time-frame you're stating that took 2 hours, there was a ticket submitted with notes stating cannot access server that was sent to the support queue rather than the dc queue, where reboots are treated as priority. From your time-frame the longest one I could find was a reboot ticket that took 20 minutes to reply to, and the server took approx. 30-40 mins to come all the way up so we could close the ticket.

The first ticket was submitted as "cannot access server" because I wasn't sure if I needed a reboot. I called phone support immediately and they said they'll change it to reboot for me. When I looked, the idiot that did that changed it to "Plesk Control Panel Errors," which was the option right above "Reboot."

Don't try to make it sound like you worked on my server for 30-40min before you got it up. Phone support told me himself that the techs were on other servers and could not get to mine yet. This was the San Antonio support that I called. And BTW, I first called the Houston support but they didn't want to help at all and just tried to get me off the phone as soon as possible. I get that A LOT from rackshack support. Teach them to HELP the client, not get RID of them. I hope rackshack can accept this humbly and make some changes before you ruin your reputation for good.

Originally posted by jakiao
As for the OS restore, as I said in like my second post: he didn't know the trojan was in his personal files on the old hard drive. Rackshack placed the old drive into the server and allowed him to mount it to gather his data. When the drive was mounted, the trojan was basically given access to the new drive.


Mounting the hard drive does not activate the trogan. Your friend must have copied the compromised files to the new hard drive. Your friend should have hired somebody to restore his data and secure the server.

Originally posted by Al Nany
The first ticket was submitted as "cannot access server" because I wasn't sure if I needed a reboot. I called phone support immediately and they said they'll change it to reboot for me. When I looked, the idiot that did that changed it to "Plesk Control Panel Errors," which was the option right above "Reboot."

Don't try to make it sound like you worked on my server for 30-40min before you got it up. Phone support told me himself that the techs were on other servers and could not get to mine yet. This was the San Antonio support that I called. And BTW, I first called the Houston support but they didn't want to help at all and just tried to get me off the phone as soon as possible. I get that A LOT from rackshack support. Teach them to HELP the client, not get RID of them. I hope rackshack can accept this humbly and make some changes before you ruin your reputation for good.

I wont say they worked dedicated on your server for 30-40 minutes because that would be untrue, but the reboot was initiated 20 minutes after the reboot was submitted, then there was some work inbetween and then they had to come back to your server to see why it wasnt back up that resulted in it being down longer. Unfortunately we cannot allocate a tech to stay and work on each server that's being rebooted until it comes back up, as this can be 10-60 minutes minutes per server depending on several different factors, and we'd have to have 4-5 times the technicians we have now to accomplish this. Currently it's rebooted, then the technician will move on to the next one, then your server would be checked on to see if it's back up, if it's not back up, it's then investigated individually and fixed, so there can understandably be a time lapse if the server doesnt come right back up on it's own.

We apologize for the information that was provided to you inbetween, but reboots are handled en-mass, multiple tickets are handled at once so I'm not sure why you were told they were too busy to reboot your server, it wasnt true. I will also pass your comments on to our Support Manager for review. We are also reviewing the process and trying to provide more feedback inbetween these times, we have established a communication's position at the Datacenter specifically for this purpose which is currently in training.

We certainly appreciate feedback at any time, I'm not sure what San Antonio office you are speaking of, we do not have a location in San Antonio for our webhosting support division. It could be that you dialed our San Antonio support #, this is re-directed to our Houston offices. I would ask that you not refer to our employees as idiots, as a mistake certainly does not make someone an idiot.

Patrick,

As rackshack expects 2000 dedicated server sales per month, how many additional support staffs have you hired to anticipate this growth? How many staffs were hired for the growth in the past months?

That isn't the point of my post, though. My point was to show how the RS techs handled this. They didn't want to speak with me. They didn't want to provide support. They simply wanted to get on with whatever I distrubed them from.

Please dont expect grade 'A' support for $99/month. If your server keeps going down, it is your responsibilty as an owner of an unmanaged server to administer and manage it.

I am not a customer of RS but I am sure Rackshack's pricing is great for people who are comfortable with running a server without holding anyones hands.

Just now I’ve been waiting over 2 hours for a server reboot.

2 HOURS FOR A RACKSHACK SERVER REBOOT!!!!

WOW!!! THAT SUCKS!!

RS customer service is ridiculous. I would never ever consider using them. :eek:

vselvara, please don't speak as if you understand the frustration and pain. Perhaps you know everything about running a server, but IMHO, good service is assumed. A company that cannot offer good service is a company that should not be in business.

Like jakiao said, this isn’t about rackshack unable to help; it is about them unwilling to help. One is acceptable and the other is intolerable. Every time I call rackshack I feel like I am stepping into a home that does not welcome me. It’s truly an uncomfortable feeling.

I genuinely wish I was a happy customer at rackshack and I can tell everyone how great they are, I even wish I will magically begin to receive great service from rackshack. But for now, since moving servers is a troublesome task, I can only hope patiently as I look elsewhere for good service.

heh what versa was trying to say basically was if your not able to manage your own server dont be cheap and buy an unmanaged server at 99 go buy a managerd one where they can and will assist you. for someone who doesnt need the help these prices are perfect cant say Ive had too many problems with any of our 4 rackshacks.

Originally posted by centrahost
2 HOURS FOR A RACKSHACK SERVER REBOOT!!!!

WOW!!! THAT SUCKS!!

RS customer service is ridiculous. I would never ever consider using them. :eek:

No offense, but did you read the thread? It did not take 2 hours for a server reboot. It was initiated in 20 minutes.

Originally posted by Al Nany
Patrick,

As rackshack expects 2000 dedicated server sales per month, how many additional support staffs have you hired to anticipate this growth? How many staffs were hired for the growth in the past months?

I'm not going to get into details of exact staffing, but we hire new staff to accomodate our growth.

ill take a job :)

Basically, your friend and maybe you too needs a managed server or a reseller account. Your friend screwed up his server not once but twice and Rackshack said "enough! This guy is an accident waiting to happen and pulled the plug". Please don't blame a company for your friend's inability to manage a server - remember, he can't even mount a hdd. Why on earth did he even consider an unmanaged server?

Also, it is not a matter of NOT being willing to help. The fact of the matter is that they absolutely should NOT help. Rackshack wants to sell unmanaged servers to people who can manage them. If they helped your friend out with this issue, it wouldn't be long (with your friend's lack of ability) before he needed help with something else, and then something else and then.... ie MANAGING an UNMANAGED server at UNMANAGED server prices. Not good for the business plan!!:D

Sorry Patrick, you can call it intiating reboot or you can call it pressing the button to reboot it then walking away until the customer reports that it did not reboot. Any way you slice it, this customer has a legitimate beef. That box should have been rebooted and that process should have been monitored for any problems. Problem? Call customer, repair, reboot, bill.

Yesterday I called to place a 6 server order with RS. I was transferred to customer service and then disconnected after being on hold for 25 minutes and talking to 3 people. I guess that was a blessing in disguise. That was the third and final time I tried to order service from RS as the continue to drop the ball.

This person may have a point. I have had similar experiences from RS.

Just my opinion.